Training plan for strategy / evaluation of a position

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for advice on improving my chess game. I regularly solve puzzles for tactics and study opening moves and variations, but I struggle with strategic play, evaluating positions, and understanding why certain moves are better. I use Chessval to train and evaluate positions, but I often don't understand why my evaluations are wrong.

How do you train for strategic play, get better at evaluating positions, and learn from your mistakes when you don’t understand the correct moves? Any tips or resources would be appreciated!

Thanks!

Read best game collections by grandmasters, they will explain their assessment of positions and strategic evaluation.
Alternatively, there are books on the middlegame that focus on strategy rather than tactics, and puzzle books too.

Maybe try one of these:
Best Lessons of a Chess Coach
https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Chess-Coach-Sunil-Weeramantry/dp/1936277905/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=241641906121&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9033692&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=2647734780913502312&hvtargid=kwd-362968625&hydadcr=15969_10361249&keywords=best+lessons+of+a+chess+coach&qid=1684474574&sr=8-1
"... [Simple Chess by GM Stean] will definitely help players in the general rating range of 1300-2000 with their positional play and strategic thinking. ..."
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104258/https://www.chesscafe.com/text/review400.pdf
https://store.doverpublications.com/products/9780486424200
"How to Reassess Your Chess, 4th Edition was designed for players in the 1400 to 2100 range." - IM Jeremy Silman (2010)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708095832/https://www.chesscafe.com/text/review769.pdf
https://www.silmanjamespress.com/shop/chess/how-to-reassess-your-chess-4th-edition/

Another book worth looking at is Chess strategy for club players by Herman Grooten.

I found the earlier editions of Silman's How To Reassess Your Chess to be revolutionary in how I approach positions as a younger player. What's even more interesting is that Silman (RIP) more or less rejected his planning method in his final edition of the book. But what most stuck with me is a willingness to sit down for 10-15 minutes in a classical game to analyze the imbalances of the position and find a way to tip them in your favor.

I am replying from my own position of relative ignorance in chess. But I have a few ideas and theories which might help. At least, I am trying to put these ideas in action for myself.

1. The main problem of the low level player is poor tactical ability. So, address this first. You are doing the right thing in doing lots of puzzles. I would argue (from advice I have got and from personal experience) that you need to do about 20 puzzles a day at least 5 days a week. This would amount to 100 puzzles a week. In turn, it would amount to 5,000 puzzles a year, even allowing for an anuual holiday of two weeks from chess as well as work! This begins to build up as a decent amount of puzzles.

2. You will need to do targeted puzzles. Pick one theme (tactic or motif) per day and then repeat this theme at doubling intervals. So do it on Day 1, Day 2, Day 4, Day 7, Day 14 and so on to a max of about 3 to 6 months apart. As this theme gets spaced out you have spare days to add new themes. This follows, roughly, the theory of spaced repetition learning so that you get good at remembering and spotting the patterns of the theme.

3. Analyse your games and find the tactics you most often miss. Early on I found I was missing a lot of pawn forks (for and against me). So I did fork puzzles and particularly hoped for pawn forks. I couldn't drill down to pawn forks only in Lichess. I also analyzed the pattern that makes pawn forks possible. It's very simple: two pieces on the same rank, one square apart. Now, alarm bells tell me not to place pieces like that unless there is some other very good reason and no danger of a pawn fork. Then I noticed I was bad at spotting possible queen traps so I did Trapped Piece puzzles on Lichess many of which turn out to be queen traps. So order your puzzle targeting priority by the mistakes you make most often in your games.

4. Try to analyze the puzzle out in your head before making the moves, but if feeling defeated after about 3 minutes make your best guess move anyway and try to stumble through it. Often you will stumble through it and there is some value in that too. There is not much value in staying stuck on one puzzle for 10 minutes, at least not at our rating levels. Redo your failed puzzles later the same day, don't let failed puzzles build up.

5. There are other aspects of chess so you also obviously need training session for openings, middle games, endings and strategy and planning. But maybe puzzles will be about 1/4 of the time you need to spend on chess at your (and my) current level. This presumes spending 20 hours a week on chess overall. Puzzles, playing chess and analysing your games are intense and mentally tiring. Other training probably can be of a less intense nature although memorising opening lines can be a grind too. Don't grind too much or you will lose your freshness and chess will cease to be fun.

Just my ideas of course. I am still working on finding the best chess improvement method for me. Everyone will be a bit different in what they need and what works for them. I am noticing from post-game analysis that I am missing opportunities to make pawn breaks which does, of course, relate to planning and strategy, not just to tactics. So I have to seek out the theory of pawn breaks and practice finding them when they are appropriate and useful. I have posted a question on that topic seeking help about studying and doing puzzles maybe for pawn breaks.

Yes @EDTA532 I reached THAT point about 39 years ago & when I Study Chess STILL & Since I have studied mostly all these type of Chess Books since . You still need a mix healthy mix of different Chess videos & Chess Books at the point you are at' . If you are serious to hear a Chess Book every Month to read I can start you off with Capablanca's Best Chess Endings by Irving Chernev where there are 60 Complete games to look at . Should take you about 30-30 minutes per game so about 6 a day for 10 days during the first Month . You will also still Play Chess

@ThunderClap said in #7:

Yes @EDTA532 I reached THAT point about 39 years ago & when I Study Chess STILL & Since I have studied mostly all these type of Chess Books since . You still need a mix healthy mix of different Chess videos & Chess Books at the point you are at' . If you are serious to hear a Chess Book every Month to read I can start you off with Capablanca's Best Chess Endings by Irving Chernev where there are 60 Complete games to look at . Should take you about 30-30 minutes per game so about 6 a day for 10 days during the first Month . You will also still Play Chess

Thank you very much. Yes, since I'm consider myself a beginner I only bought books about tactics and one book about king and pawn endgame.

Experience, gathering chunks. There is no shortcut. Consume valuable chess content and let your brain compose.

Thank you all for your advise.

So from what I understand, best thing is to analyse positional play of grandmasters and read books.
The thing is that sometimes, I do not understand why, strategically, the knight would be better than the bishop in that situation.

I will try to study positional games and ask if there is anything i really don't understand